General Assembly discusses fight against HIV/AIDS

The United Nations General Assembly
today convened a high-level meeting to discuss a report by
Secretary-General Kofi Annan on progress in the worldwide
fight against HIV/AIDS.

In opening the session, Assembly
President Julian Robert Hunte of St. Lucia called on UN
Member States to reaffirm their pledge to halt and reverse
the HIV/AIDS pandemic and build on the foundation set at a
special meeting in 2001.

Mr. Hunte said though there had
been signs of progress and resources allocated, they must be
juxtaposed against the shortfall in funding of the Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. "It falls to
governments to provide the leadership and vision to confront
the crisis in their own countries and to cooperate in the
global fight against HIV/AIDS," he said.

Stressing that
HIV/AIDS is much more than a public health problem and
impacts virtually every aspect of human endeavour, Mr. Hunte
also urged interventions that "go hand in hand with policies
that address poverty, socio-economic development, human
welfare and social cohesion."

Barbados Prime Minister
Owen Arthur renewed his country's commitment to work in
harmony with its Caribbean neighbours to alleviate the
threat posed by AIDS to the region's stability and security.
As a mark of that commitment, Barbados pledged to contribute
$100,000 to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria.

For his part, the President of Ghana, John
Agyekum Kufuor, said since 2001, the national AIDS
Commission has disbursed $20 million out of an International
Development Association (IDA) credit of $25 million to fund
HIV/AIDS intervention projects by several organizations
around the country. The country's prevalence rate of 3.4 per
cent has not shown any reversal in the past two years and
the Government is intensifying the pursuit of appropriate,
cost-effective strategies to reduce this rate.

President
Abdoulaye Wade said the fight against HIV/AIDS in Senegal
rested upon a double imperative-rapid response and a spirit
of anticipation. In addition to screening all blood
donations, Senegal has begun to decentralize its anonymous
HIV/AIDS centres, with religious leaders acting as a
critical component of efforts to increase the public's
awareness. These efforts have also benefited from a 95 per
cent cut in the cost of antiretroviral drugs from large
pharmaceutical groups.

Meanwhile, HIV/AIDS has been
declared a "national disaster" in Lesotho, Prime Minister
Pakalitha Bethuel Mosisili said. His Government continues to
use every opportunity to help control and manage the
pandemic. The primary focus in prevention has been on
communication and education for behavioural change,
particularly for youth. The Government is reviewing the
national strategic plan from in order to shift the national
response from the health sector to a multisectoral and
multistakeholder paradigm.

Portuguese President Jorge
Fernando Branco de Sampaio said the epidemic was one of the
most striking examples of the need to co-ordinate political
guidelines and to take concrete measures "not unilaterally,
but in solidarity." The international political agenda,
while understandably concerned with the fight against
terrorism, must not forget "this other source of terror."

For his part the President of Madagascar, Marc
Ravalomanana, hoped that they all would leave today's
meeting having made progress towards specific action and
adequate means to implement it. "We must not wait, for AIDS
is not waiting," he said, adding that "there can be no
progress or development for a society that is ill."

President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine said the National
Programme on HIV prevention had made substantial progress in
his country but there were still a number of problems,
particularly financial. Still, he added, "I am confident
that the engagement of resources of the Global Fund and of
the World Bank will enable us to significantly improve the
current situation."

Stressing the urgent need for
coherent global policies against the scourge, Nigerian
President Olusegun Obasanjo said inadequate resources, the
lack of technical capacity in developing countries and the
high cost of antiretroviral drugs for HIV/AIDS victims were
among the issues to be addressed internationally. He called
for research priorities designed to take into account the
health needs of developing countries.

President Jacques
Chirac of France said the UN embodied a universal conscience
in the fight against HIV/AIDS and there was no further
excuse for inaction. Effective treatments now existed and
had become accessible to the poorest nations. All
governments now accepted that access to medications was
inseparable from prevention, he added.

Speaking for the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, President Joseph Kabila
said that in the war against AIDS there could be no
ceasefire or peace talks. His country was now working on
antiretroviral treatments and on lowering mother-to-child
transmissions, and was trying to jump-start its health
sector response to the disease, he added.

Urging a
scaling up of efforts in prevention, financing, access to
medication, and coordination among the different
initiatives, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika called
for further efforts at the national, regional and
international levels. He underscored the key role of the
private sector and civil society in securing additional
resources.

President Joaquim Alberto Chissano of
Mozambique, Chairman of the African Union, called AIDS a
worldwide challenge that required worldwide and integrated
collaboration, emphasizing that the epidemic had drastically
affected the social and economic fabric of communities and
constituted a major obstacle to the achievement of the
ambitious Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty
and hunger, among other things, by 2015.

For his part,
President Pascal Couchepin of Switzerland, noting that 70
per cent of persons infected with the AIDS virus live in
sub-Saharan Africa, stressed that it was necessary to
persevere in all efforts aimed at making medication more
accessible to those who need it.

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